Thursday, October 7, 2010

Foreshadowing in The Westing Game

There are many examples of foreshadowing in The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin but the one I have chosen is a very mysterious. Foreshadowing is "the act of providing vague advance indications; representing beforehand"(http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=foreshadowing) In the book there is a bomber who is targeting people and this quote gives an awesome example of foreshadowing, "But the Wexler apartment was exactly where the bomber planned to set the next bomb" (Raskin 80). This is telling you where the next bombing is going to happen, therefore revealing part of the plot. By telling us this fact as you read on you are always on your toes expecting a bombing to happen at any time.The author cleverly showed us a new part of the story without giving too much information away like the time, date, ect. which made people excited to read on.This piece of foreshadowing helped move the story along from the last bombing to the next part of the book without saying 'Then this happened, and then this happened' it gave you something to think about or to be worried about. Overall a very intriguing foreshadow.

3 comments:

Well-done, Elena! Thank you for defining foreshadowing as well as giving a very concrete example and explanation. The bombing quotation truly does leave the reader wondering when it will happen. This also creates a real feeling of suspense in the story.